Marvin Kalb Biography

Marvin L. Kalb (born June 9, 1930) is an American journalist. Kalb was the Shorenstein Center's Founding Director and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy (1987"1999). The Shorenstein Center and the Kennedy School are part of Harvard University. He is currently a James Clark Welling Fellow at The George Washington University and a member of Atlantic Community Advisory Board. He is a Guest Scholar in Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution.

Kalb spent 30 years as an award-winning reporter for CBS News and NBC News. Kalb was the last newsman recruited by Edward R. Murrow to join CBS News, becoming part of the later generation of the "Murrow's Boys." His work at CBS landed him on Richard Nixon's "enemies list". At NBC, he served as chief Diplomatic Correspondent and host of Meet the Press. During many years of Kalb's tenures at CBS and NBC, his brother Bernard worked alongside him.

Kalb has authored or coauthored nine nonfiction books (Eastern Exposure, Dragon in the Kremlin, The Volga, Roots of Involvement, Kissinger, Campaign '88, The Nixon Memo, and One Scandalous Story) and two best-selling novels (In the National Interest and The Last Ambassador). His most recent book is about the haunting legacy of Vietnam, co-authored with his daughter.

He hosts The Kalb Report, a monthly discussion of media ethics and responsibility at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Shorenstein Center and George Washington University. He is a news analyst for Fox News, and a contributor to National Public Radio and America Abroad. He is currently a senior adviser at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Haunting Legacy

In his latest book, Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama (Brookings Institution Press 2011), Marvin Kalb collaborated with his daughter, Deborah Kalb, in a attempt to present a history of presidential decision-making on one crucial issue: in light of the Vietnam debacle, under what circumstances should the United States go to war? The Kalbs participated in a webcast interview of the book at the Pritzker Military Library on October 27, 2011.

Partial bibliography

• Dragon in the Kremlin: A Report on the Russian-Chinese Alliance (1961)
• Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama (Brookings Institution Press, 2011)
• Kissinger (ISBN 1125577843)
• The Last Ambassador (1981, ISBN 0-316-48222-6)
• The Media and the War on Terrorism (2003, ISBN 0-8157-3581-2)
• In the National Interest (1977, ISBN 0-671-22656-8)
• The Nixon Memo: Political Respectability, Russia, and the Press (1994, ISBN 0-226-42299-2)
• The Road to War: Presidential Commitments Honored and Betrayed (2013, ISBN 978-0-8157-2493-3)
• Roots of Involvement: the U.S. in Asia, 1784"1971 (1971, ISBN 0-393-05440-3)
• One Scandalous Story: Clinton, Lewinsky, and Thirteen Days That Tarnished American Journalism (2001, ISBN 0-684-85939-4)

Trivia

Kalb's colleagues at NBC had a running joke involving an NBC affiliate in Alexandria, Louisiana " KALB-TV, referring to that affiliate as "Marvin's Station". At one point, Today co-host Bryant Gumbel, in a co-op promo for the station's upcoming feature about Today in 1985, identified the station as KALB, smiled into the camera, and then intoned, "Marvin's Station" at which point the off-camera crew broke up.

Fox News political commentator Bill O'Reilly was one of Kalb's students.